In 1970, Sheldon Dorf led a band of volunteers organizing San Diego’s first Comic-Con. The 35-year-old Michigan transplant had the vision and the experience, having run similar shows in Detroit.

But if Dorf was the main man, Richard Alf was the indispensable teen. The 17-year-old senior at Kearny High School possessed two things Dorf did not: a car and cash.

“He was a really good businessman,” said Mike Towry, a friend and fellow co-founder of the Con, which now draws more than 125,000 people each summer to downtown San Diego. “For the first three years, Richard would front the money — and it could have been as much as a few thousand dollars — to the convention and then get paid back afterward.”

As Dorf lacked his own transportation, Alf’s battered 1954 Volkswagen bug was also critical.

“In those early days,” Towry said, “it was all about Richard’s VW.”

Alf, who later founded the “Comic Kingdom” shop, died Wednesday from pancreatic cancer. He was 59.

His death came as some were working to restore Alf to his central place in the Comic-Con saga. He and other founders were saluted at the 2009 Comic-Con. The gesture came none too soon — two key organizers died that November, Dorf passing in San Diego at age 76 and former Ocean Beach bookstore owner Ken Krueger in upstate New York at 83.

Around the same time, researchers at San Diego State University contacted Alf, Towry and other “Comic-Con Kids” to capture their tales.

“As a very young individual, Richard was not afraid to pursue his passions,” said Lynn Hawkes, special projects officer for the university’s library. “He led a very interesting life and created something for the entire community that has been really wonderful.”

Richard Alf was the son of Edward F. Alf Jr., a psychology professor at SDSU from 1963 until 1988, and Martha Alf, an artist. A voracious reader, the boy was known for his height — he eventually hit 6-foot-6 — his thick, dark-rimmed glasses and his love of comics.

“He appeared to be the classic definition of a nerd,” said Rob Ray, head of special collections at the SDSU library.

But that geeky exterior hid a sharp-witted entrepreneur. While Mike Towry and several friends at Kearny traded, bought and sold used comics, their hobby was as low-key and mild-mannered as Clark Kent. In Alf’s hands, this was a full-fledged business, as muscular as Superman.

“I may have had 20,000 (comics) in my parents’ garage,” Alf told the U-T in 2009.

He also advertised in the pages of DC and Marvel comics, mailing his wares to customers around the country. One of those ads led Dorf to this young merchant, who was intrigued by Dorf’s plan to put on a convention focusing on comics, movies and science fiction. Alf introduced his new friend to Mike Towry and a third Kearny student, Bob Sourk.

When Dorf met Krueger, whose bookstore was a popular hangout for a group of Crawford High School students known as “The Woodchucks,” he had his team.